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Monday, 14 May 2012

From Jalisco to Tamaulipas, Los Zetas’ days are numbered

The drug war that has raged in Mexico for five and half
years, and that has claimed more than 50,000 lives, has been in the news of
late: 23 bodies found hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped near city
hall in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (May 6); 18
bodies found outside the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco (May 9); and 49 bodies
dumped on the side of a highway between Monterrey and the U.S. border,
in the state of Nuevo Leon (May 13).

The rationale for this extreme violence is, in a very broad
sense, easy to understand: the Mexican government has militarized the conflict,
and the cartels have responded by fighting for their lives.

There is an important twist, and that is the Los Zetas cartel, which has
been targeted by Mexican authorities, and which has emerged as a hard-core
killing machine that refuses to slow down.

However, we are now down to a conflict in which Sinaloa, along
with its sometime allies the Gulf
Cartel , are in a massive and brutal “final conflict” with Los Zetas, who
are counting on support from the weakened Juárez and Tijuana
Cartels.

The unspoken strategy on the part of the government seems
clear: open the plaza for the Sinaloa Cartel, and remove the competition, particularly
Los Zetas.

There is a good reason for this approach. The Sinaloa Cartel
is, and always has been, primarily a drug trafficking organization. By
comparison, Los Zetas – who began as government-trained paramilitaries before
joining the Gulf Cartel and then, ultimately, going solo – are more active in
other highly disruptive and violent criminal activities such as kidnapping and
extortion.

Without access to profitable drug routes, Los Zetas emerged
as an aggressive crime organization that focussed on a corridor down the Gulf
coast – from the U.S. border to Guatemala. They leaned heavily into human
trafficking and tried to elbow into new drug transit opportunities in Central America.

And they very foolishly decided to roll over the top of Mexico.
They challenged the Sinaloa cartel’s client gang Nueva Generacion in Jalisco,
and even went up the Pacific coast into the state of Sinaloa itself.

Los Zetas: public
enemy number one

Proof that Los Zetas are in the government’s cross hairs,
and that Sinaloa is getting an easier ride due to its “peaceful” approach to
drug trafficking, can be seen in recent arrest activity and in accusations of
Los Zetas’ involvement in massacres.

Four Los Zetas members were recently arrested for the Jalisco
killings. The gangsters were detained in Tala, and were allegedly acting
on the orders of Juan Carlos Antonio Mercado, alias “El Chato,” a suspected Los
Zetas boss.

On May 11 Mexican authorities announced the arrest of the
Los Zetas alleged chief enforcer in the Gulf state of Veracruz. Marcos Jesus
Hernandez Rodriguez is accused of masterminding the brutal murders of four navy
personnel and a civilian in April.

As well, a message was left with Los Zetas claiming
responsibility for the killings near Monterrey, which included at least 43 men
and half a dozen women. They were found in plastic garbage bags near the town
of Cadereyta
Jimenez, in Nuevo Leon. The victims
had been decapitated, with their hands and feet chopped off.

Many of the bodies had tattoos, and state prosecutor Adrian
de la Garza said some of them may have been immigrants or hailed from other parts
of the country. Los Zetas are known to intercept migrants and to force them into
crime, sometimes slaughtering them for refusing to cooperate.

However, Los Zetas have since claimed that the Cadreyta Jimenez massacre was not their doing. This is an odd turn of events, as the gang has rarely found a mass murder that it wasn't proud of.

Although media reports have said that the U.S. government
considers Los Zetas to be “the most technologically advanced, sophisticated,
and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico,” it would seem that Los Zetas’
strategy of ultra-violence is desperate, and has set them against the government,
the Sinaloa Cartel, and Mexican society itself.

In the meantime, the Sinaloa Cartel sticks to its knitting,
which is the highly lucrative trafficking market. And it does this via a very
effective policy of old-school bribery and corruption. This is a modus operandi that is built for the
long haul, and that will thrive no matter who is elected in Mexico’s presidential
election July 1.

And Los Zetas? Like any organization that is built on
violence, and that has a weak revenue stream and shallow government influence
due to its limited financial resources, it will become a victim of its own
violent desperation, with deaths and arrests making it impossible to build
organizational continuity.

No one knows when the expiration date is, but one thing is
certain: Los Zetas cannot “heat up the plaza” forever. Sooner or later, they’ll
simply burn out.

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In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

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